


waking up beside you

by Rozjozbrod



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel, fitzsimmons - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Comfort, Cuddling, F/M, Fluff, bed sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 04:53:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13651833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rozjozbrod/pseuds/Rozjozbrod
Summary: post 3x02 canon compliant one shot that explores the moment at the end of 3x02 where Jemma falls asleep in Fitz's lap from Fitz's POV





	waking up beside you

That night, under a clear and moonless sky, Jemma had bid him goodnight with a shy smile and downcast eyes. She’d hardly said anything since they had touched back down at the base, but for that, he could never blame her. From what she had managed to stammer out in the confusion of leaving the English castle, with blue dirt still dusting her cheeks, they gathered that she’d had a harrowing experience on the planet that Fitz had glimpsed. It scared him, seeing the trembling, wide-eyed girl who had so recently been a shining beacon of strength and bubbling passion. But he said nothing, and instead let her grip his hand tightly for the entire flight home, pretending not to notice that her knuckles were white.

Now she was sleeping, and his tired feet were taking him aimlessly around the base, criss-crossing between late night lab techs and co workers with a detached daze. After toiling ceaselessly for so long on bringing her home, Fitz felt rather unmoored. He passed Hunter and Bobbi, playing cards and drinking, who waved him over good-naturedly to join them, but he only shook his head and continued on, feeling incredibly unsettled. As he passed the dim lights of the lab, their lab, Fitz had the brief and horrifying thought that she would never be the same again. That the lab would be eternally dark. That someone else would take over the science division, and throw away all of her neat post-it notes and multi-colored gel pens. That she had changed irrevocably, and would now forever be a trembling shadow of her former self dressed in blue. His heart ached for her and all that she had been; for her brightly patterned shirts, cheerful smile, and insatiable curiosity. For her kindness and soft hands, coaxing life as easily out of him as her biological samples. He wondered if perhaps she would be better off if he left her to heal on her own; he’d had the sinking suspicion on the plane, while Coulson had been questioning her, that it was his presence that had put her at unease. 

Then it hit him like a bucket of ice water, and he stopped in his tracks. His tread silenced, he felt himself flood down to the floor, and he felt tears spring to his blue eyes. Of course. After the pod had exploded in the deep Atlantic, and Fitz’s brain had been forever changed, Jemma had left him alone in a lab that they had grown up in together. She had left him, and the space that she had occupied in his heart had been a gaping, bleeding hole that he had had to fill on his own, and that had been almost more painful than the experience itself had been. He’d needed her, and she had left. He hadn’t understood anything except the pain of waking up that one morning to the news that she had gone, Coulson’s generally kind face uncharacteristically somber.

Now he understood. God, he understood. He finally knew what she had been trying to say, when she’d explained with tears in her brown eyes that she hadn’t left him because she thought he was useless. Of course she hadn’t. He felt it now, a love so powerful that it disarmed him, and made him want to walk away from her. She’d left because she cared for him, as backward as the logic sounded to him then. 

Now, standing in a circle of light in an otherwise dim hallway, Fitz was faced with the momentous decision: to leave her now, or to stay. It was almost like a conversation in a mirror, with a younger, more bruised self. Fitz asked him, the trembling boy who couldn’t tie his own ties or shave his own face if, in the end, had her leaving really helped him grow? Or had it set him back? If he left her now, would she see visions of him everywhere, hanging like little blinking fairy lights in the base? Or would she move on, all the more healthy without him? He felt a tear streak unbidden down his cheek, and felt an overwhelming sense of affection for his past self. It hadn’t helped him grow, her leaving. It had hollowed him out like a tree branch, and he had spent months and tears and breakdowns trying desperately to build himself back up again. But he understood it now, and maybe it had all come full circle. He knew that no matter what she needed, above it all he would be there for her. If she told him to go, he would. If she asked him to stay, . . .

He closed his eyes and tried to remember his first night back on the base after staying in a hospital bed for so long. The first quiet night without blinking lights and rhythmic beeps and stethoscopes. He tried to remember how he had slept, how he had dreamt. Then, like a sun rising over a sparkling ocean, he realized slowly that he hadn’t. He had yearned for her the whole night, not for her body or their memories or uncertain future, but just that she would be there, beside him when he woke. For months, he’d had to suffer nightmares of explosions and water-filled lungs alone. He couldn’t damn her to the same.

His feet had decided where they were going before his mind had caught up. He quickly passed Bobbi and Hunter, who watched with eyes that were all too knowing, and tread the familiar path to the dorms, past his own room, and to the one that held the only person he ever cared about behind its door. He hesitated, for just one second, before opening the door quietly and slipping into the quiet room. 

She was curled into a ball under a mess of grey blankets, sleeping soundly. Her breath was slow, quiet, calming. With brown hair framing her tired face, he could scarcely remember a time when she had looked so small, and he was possessed by the intense and aggressive urge to kiss her forehead, to bid all the bad dreams away, and to protect her from the nightmares that were sure to come.

But he didn’t. He remembered how he’d felt then, just wanting her close, and settled down along the honeycombed wall, with his legs uncomfortably stretched on the floor. He leaned his head back and looked at her, his tired heart filling with warmth. She was so lovely.

He fell asleep there, beside her. In the middle of the night, he woke briefly with a crick in his neck, and startled slightly when he saw that she had moved. Instead of curled up in a ball on the bed, she had draped herself across his lap, clutching his knee tightly. She slept quietly. 

He smiled then, with just a hint of blue sadness, and had gone back to bed, just grateful that she was there. Whatever storms were to come, they would weather them as one.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments and kudos are much appreciated! Come hang out on tumblr @drdrdrfitzsimmons


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